Three Poems by John Redmond

Trip Hazards

    a habit from J’s mother         to place objects      

on the stairs     for lifting up or down     one day

         a book       a bottle of conditioner

                a shy little frog     crooning   

                       ‘Halfway Down

         The Stairs’   why not?   we all loved

The Muppets     although it was ‘Mah-Na Mah-Na’

          the A-side      my mother preferred

         and which my aunt tracked down        

               one day    in Golden Discs

         the staff went     “oh yes    halfway

         down the stairs     on the other side” 

     and she waddled      doo doo be doo boo      

          across the shop     “where did you

                  say the stairs were?”

         at my mother’s cremation      we played

      ‘Mah-Na Mah-Na’     why not?  weeks later

          on the other side      she was joined

      by my aunt   doo doo be doo     whom we

                placed     in the family-plot

       more gingerly     than D this morning

flung across the floor    his pink and purple pens  

      his study     of a boss-eyed monster

  bursting from a manhole     burping fire    

           all of it     needs picking up

           so I sit     on the second-last stair

                                and wait

Chess Weekend

                      an intuition     of chessplayers

                travelling across England

       in their supermarket trousers:

  when you wear     two colours

               everything coordinates

                            or does it?

                        yesterday in blue     and grey        

                  my opponent came late

          “I’m sorry!”     shook hands

   and played     an unexpected first move

          in analysis he explained: 

                “I am fed up with people preparing for me”

                    my opponent today    also late          

              but no apology    instead knocks

       drink over   mops up slowly

whilst masticating     orange-yellow

       sweets     with an occasional

                    crack

                  at the end     a ghostly handshake 

           I prepare    to flounce off

     in my gunmetal trousers 

but then     think better of it

     start to set up the pieces again

                 which we do in dead silence

A Black Line Through Everything

A black line through everything

A lifting her arms

                                  from the elbows

only one    hand towards me

                                  one towards my brother

radio releases     a sizzled thing

      she cannot hear     and we don’t

                over the industry

of the oxygen machine      mouthing

      I love you    me     on the side

      she can no longer see    has to

turn her head     becoming harder

        and harder by the hour

        when the time arrives

should we     leave the lights on?

we wait in the corridor for nurses

to change A      as Mary     no longer     

        Sister Mary     wheels from   

     her room       resident for age

     not mind     her togetherness

is a surprise     “I think your mother

 is leaving me soon     you know she was  

       such a character     we always had

       great times together”     through the glass    

             door     a nun’s graveyard    

      “now I’ll leave you boys alone”

she says     crisply rolling away

        all the charcoal crosses are identical

John Redmond is the author of three collections with Carcanet, the last one being The Alexandra Sequence (2016).